Tuesday, March 24, 2015

The Underrated Gift of Sanity

Permit me these examples three.

First, the closing of the all-women's college, Sweet Briar. Sweet Briar last month announced that it would be closing this year. This was greeted with screams and vitriol, claims dreams have been destroyed, and repleted with threats of lawsuits and protests from current day students, as well as alumni and professorial staff.

Never mind the mathematical reality that the liberal arts bubble is bursting.
Never mind they have 1 employee per 5 students.
And never mind this college runs horse stables, indicating insane financial mismanagement and mathematical ineptitude.

Reality doesn't matter to those affected by Sweet Briar's closing. All that matters is what they were told, believed, and wanted. And thus these two irreconcilable forces result in grief, anger, confusion, frustration, and stress.

Second, "girls hate jocks."

Or at least that's what my mother told me when I was a youngin'. Couple that with the 90's decade long propaganda that women wanted kind, caring, sensitive men, and a generation of boys-now-men expended considerable energies during their teens and 20's pursuing women using strategies that were (in part) based on these flawed premises.

The results were entirely predictable - failure. And not just failure, but failure with the same commensurate grief, anger, confusion, frustration, and stress that is currently plaguing the clueless people of Sweet Briar.

This is a precious quote from a British woman named Patricia who, despite being 64, thought her marriage to a 26 year old Tunisian man was going to last.

And why wouldn't she?

She was told by feminists, media, professors, and leftist politicians, that 50 is the new 20. Age and beauty are merely social constructs. And men who chase after women for looks are not just shallow, but flawed.

The only problem is reality did not care what politicians, feminists, media types, and professors told her. 2 million years of human evolution prompted the young Tunisian man to leave her, resulting in, once again, grief, anger, confusion, frustration, and stress.

We could go on, but the above three anecdotes point towards a crisis the United States and Western Civilization are slowly, but unavoidably wandering into. A crisis of a deluded population crashing into the impenetrable wall of reality.

How our civilization became so deluded is somewhat complicated, but in hindsight explainable and understandable. With unrivaled economic success due to free markets, freedom, and capitalism, Western Civilization advanced so quickly that the majority of the economic and biological problems that plagued humanity for the past 2 million years were resolved. Hunger was eradicated. Poverty was eradicated. Even certain diseases were completely eradicated that entirely new ones were discovered because humans rarely lived as long in the past. This resulted in a spoiled population that never really endured the hardships of true life, and worse, gave people with a lot of time on their hands, even more.

Idle minds are the devil's workshop, and go to work he did, for instead of being thankful for a life of ease and ample free time, people's egos got in the way and demanded more. Now people were no longer satisfied with a good home cooked meal, they sought out the "injustice" of who precisely cooked that meal. No longer were people satisfied that a rich guy invented a device that allowed them to communicate with people around the world for nearly free. They were obsessed about him having more money, even obsessed about the color of his skin and the fact he was a man. And no longer were people satisfied. And no longer were people thankful for companies that created life saving devices and drugs, but insisted they were oppressed by these engines of innovation for they dared to charge for their services and dared to move to greener pastures. In short, Western Civilization slid into becoming a spoiled brat, narcissistic, envious society where all that mattered was feeding their ego without the required work and accomplishment that would warrant it.

This insatiable desire to feed the ego without the commensurate work resulted in a group of opportunists who were only more than happy to feed society's ego at seemingly no cost. To do this they created, out of whole cloth, false narratives and religions that the naive masses would swallow whole:

And so even with the benefit of stable and sane parents, even with the benefit of grounded peers, everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY within Western Civilization succumbed, one way or another, to at least ONE bit of erroneous and false propaganda. One bit of false, erroneous propaganda that cost them precious years of their lives.

Millions of students, brainwashed by public school teachers, wasted trillions on stupid, worthless, and completely unemployable degrees.

Millions of children were raised in divorced or single parent homes because feminists convinced women that was just as good an environment as a nuclear family.

And three generations of women were led to believe their careers and government checks were more important than the human beings in their lives, only to find out too late upon their death beds that they had wasted their one shot at life (but again, at least some democrat politicians got their vote).

We can go on, but you get the point. Everybody in Western Civilization in one capacity or another, was brainwashed to believe in a lie that just wasn't true. And even though they may have believed the lie, it didn't change the fact reality doesn't care. And this conflict between what they were told, what they believed and what reality ultimately delivered has caused nearly everyone untold grief, suffering, confusion, frustration, and anger.

But enter two coincidentally timed events:

1. The development of the internet
2. The Great Recession

The internet is amazing unto itself. However, it has a unique trait that has the potential to undermine the charlatans and con artists posing as politicians, professors, teachers, feminists, etc. It not only allows anybody to write anything they want, but it allows everybody in the world to view it. In other words, the internet side steps the establishment guardians and censors of the MSM media. This allows ordinary people to expose the corrupt people of our society and hopefully "wake up the masses"as to just how brainwashed they are, and to just what a tragedy is being perpetrated against them.

However, people in power do not give it up lightly. And to protect themselves against the internet they have made it socially, professionally, politically, and economically for anybody to speak directly and bluntly about the truth. And this "political correctness" is no joke. With Mozilla, DongleGate, and doxxing, people (primarily on the left) only need to take public statements of a person, found on the internet, tell his/her employer about it and ruin their careers and financial livelihood forever. Thus, even with a powerful tool like the internet at their disposal, most people obey like the sheep they are and dare not speak what they truly think in fear of losing their jobs.

Well...that was until The Great Recession anyway.

For while many people have a career or a family to worry about, The Great Recession made it so millions would never have a career and family to begin with. So devastating and drawn out was this recession nearly 1.5 generations never succeeded much past college, and when you combine its severity with the fact the solution to the recession was to bail out those that caused it, any faith in "authority" or hope in a meritocracy had vanished. And now an estimated 100 million people not only have nothing to lose, but a hatred for those who ruined their lives.

And they've taken to the internet.

The red pill, the Manosphere, the alt right, you name it, millions of people with millions of blogs, YouTube channels and podcasts have formed as the only, but growing beacon of sanity, empiricism and reality. Everyday they highlight and point out the insanity they see, but the rest of the world doesn't as they're too absorbed in themselves and protective of their egos to do so. And these internet rogues also point out the perpetrators who are responsible for it, profiling and shining a light on the endless list of politicians, feminists, professors, deans, activists, and others who are scrambling to save themselves.

However, in being the only bastion of truth, reality and sanity, this part of the internet faces a Herculean challenge. Decades worth and trillions of dollars in brainwashing and lies have been propagated and incorporated into the minds of millions of people. So successfully so, that even if you're trying to point out the truth to them, their egos have been so pampered and protected, their response is not only disbelief, but one of rage, anger, hatred, even assault (imagine telling a liberal arts major their degree is worthless, or telling a wimpy, but reliable chemical engineer male most women will pass him up for a drug dealing thug with muscles). But this daunting challenge aside, it still doesn't change the fact that these people have to face a choice no matter how thorough and complete their brainwashing:

Continue to live in your deluded dream world, continue to chase and pursue after dreams that will never be,

or

accept the cold harsh reality that reality is.

To a sane person the choice is obvious, because there is no choice. Reality is reality. By definition choosing not to accept it is delusional and proof of a mental problem. But if you've been brought up your entire life under lies and propaganda, and you value your ego more than the rest of society and the real world, and above all else, you're an intellectual weakling, you will likely continue to live the lie.

But as tempting as it is to stay in the warm, but false, comforts of pretty lies, there is one benefit to "taking the red pill" (as it were) and it's more valuable than all the promises of the charlatans and con-artists.

Sanity.

Understand no matter what the politicians, feminists, journalists and professors tell you, it's not true. Their promises and your dreams that were based in them are never going to come to fruition. So no matter how comforting and ego-protecting it is today, if you believe them and make life decisions based on them, you will ruin your life. And not just by failing to achieve dreams that were never achievable in the first place, but the sheer torment you'll endure that is caused by the anger, confusion, frustration, stress and grief of living a lie (again, imagine the daily torment people with "Masters in English" are suffering in the labor market or women who believe they could "have it all" are suffering in the dating/marriage market)

But if you give up your deluded dreams and accept to live in reality, you get the gift of sanity. The KNOWING why things happened the way they did in the past, the knowledge of how things are likely to work in the future, and never being confused, frustrated, or angry again. Imagine if you were told what women REALLY liked when you were 13. Imagine if you were told how corporate America really worked. Imagine if you were told about the economic realities of choosing the right major.

To have that you only need to give up your dreams.

Which is a good thing because those dreams were worthless because they were never going to happen anyway.

Perhaps the worst negative propaganda is that courage is no longer necessary, that heroism is laughable, and that it is ridiculous for men to fight and perhaps to die for their country. And so we have American soldiers yet again cutting and running, this time from Yemen; leaving behind what Mark Steyn estimates to be half a billion dollars worth of weapons. Yes, even the US Marines cut and ran.

Courage is the most basic virtue, but it requires not much intelligence to appreciate. You have humiliated yourselves in front of the entire world. Do you think they will not despise you?

Net Neutrality will put an end to the free exchange of ideas and thought. That is why it passed the FCC Commission....with votes predictably along party lines. 20 years ago almost everyone will have forgotten....if they ever were aware of....the freedom of speech the internet allowed for the brief 20 years it was unfettered by politics.

I'm convinced that we are experiencing the beginning of the end of the current collegiate system in America. These smaller private colleges and lower tier state schools are caught in a precarious position. Either spend additional money to keep up with the Jones' University (i.e. spending all this money on college lifestyle enhancements and luxury dorms to attract students.) or go out of business. Some, like William Peace University have bought some time by going coed, but as we can see with Sweet Briar, even adding shiny new buildings aren't enough to keep the doors open.

I really have my doubts that the current system is sustainable, even with the trillions being thrown at it. Mark my word. Just as you are seeing these websites chronicling the demise of retail stores and paying tribute to malls that are dead, in the very near future, don't be surprised to see websites start to pop up paying tribute to the ghost towns that were once college campuses.

Cap - this is some of your best writing ever. Heck leave out the three examples and lead with the explanation of our delusion and this could be your Galt speech (albeit 50 or so pages shorter). I have to say that although I enjoy the normal cussing and staccato layout of your posts - this one was a head above the rest. Respect.

Great article - so good that I had to share a link to it with the sweet folks at Sweet Briar. I imagine it will have the half-life of a chocolate eclair in front of Oprah but at least I gave it the old college try (pun intended). :-)

Excellent essay, but you did not address the path being taken by many, even if they agree with everything you wrote. That path is to get a government job and vote for politicians that promise to expand the role, and of necessity, the size of government. Big government likely isn't viable in the long term (although the U.S. has a long way to go before its government matches the size of government in countries like France),but for many it appears to be the safest place to work.

Good one, Captain.Your missive reminded me of the revelation I had when I read "Atlas Shrugged" in my late teens.I have had no confusion or disappointments since. And that was 35 years ago. I keep my family and friends close, and my powder dry...Some of us may actually be around to rebuild, after this shit is over.

The decline is long in the making; let’s hope that the pendulum swings back to sanity, rationalism, responsibility, a rejection of victimhood and the exaltation of life on earth.

During my first real job days at The Johns Hopkins Press in a beat up old warehouse next to TV hill, the aisles of books stacked neatly in boxes were for the most part written by academics that probably couldn’t hold a real job outside the Ivory Tower. It was a sea of philosophy of feces. Nihilism, postmodernism, moral relativism ect, by the hundreds…this is what some 40 odd years has produced: culture wars, or a state of existential crisis. Only a handful of books in that warehouse (not pure science\medicine) were worth keeping. And those were the ones I confiscated at 18.

The Princeton survey rates them very highly on beautiful campus, and accessible faculty.

I wouldn't say their program is a farce but it is weak.Their B.A and B.Sc. programs in physics would get a student half-way to a degree in a real university.

Oh yes the riding program- "The Sweet Briar College Riding Program is focused on the development of active and responsible women utilizing interactions with horses and horse sports and recreational activities in a strong instructional program as the medium. "

I bet the majors in that program are popular. Terrence Popp at Redonkulas.com notes that horse women are worth dating because they are hypersexual. Crazy but hypersexual.

Sweet Briar College was a finishing school where well-born Southern women destined for marriage to "good" families were sent to stop them getting knocked up by one Daddy's field hands before Daddy could find a gentleman caller willing to take his princess off his hands, preferably one with useful business connections.

Now that the age-old ideas that nice girls don't and a father's job is to stop his daughter from making poor life choices, not acquiesce to letting her "follow her dreams" (into the bed of every field hand in sight), are considered obsolete, Sweet Briar was living on borrowed time.

I have nothing against dreamers or idealist because they constantly challenge humanity to aspire towards our greater angels. But!Today's western society has seemingly developed a massive case of ADHD where the new and shiny is granted equal or greater standing than the true and tested. People go about ripping down Chesterton's Fence without a passing thought of what troubles or beasts those fences were meant to restrain, or vulnerable gardens to protect. People treat values and principles as if they are fashion, which can be changed, accessorized, and cast off for new, without consequence to self or society. As an example, I offer a coworker who in a debate about the ACA, after I outlined the many negative effects and risks, replied "Well we need to do something so we should just try it.". The new slogan of these current generations in a nutshell "Just try it". Don't think, don't look into the lessons of the ages, just take the blind leap with the rest of the lemmings. That same coworker now is anxiously seeking new work leaving a job he is very good at and was very well compensated for, because he can't cover the dramatic rise in his young family's health insurance.